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Angels from the realms of glory, wing your flight o 'er all the earth. You who sang creation's story, now proclaim Messiah's birth. Come and worship. Come and worship. Worship Christ, the newborn King.
Please turn your Bibles to Luke, Chapter 2, as we are studying the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. Luke, Chapter 2. If you're new here, welcome to Bethlehem Bible Church. We take books of the Bible and we just march through them, chapter by chapter, verse by verse, not wanting to miss anything that the Lord would have for us.
And sometimes, surprisingly, the things in the Bible that you haven't underlined seemingly are the most chock-full of riches. Martin Luther said, when I'm told that God became man, I can follow the idea, but I just do not understand what it means.
For what man, if left to his own natural promptings, if he were God, would humble himself to lie in a feed box of a donkey or to hang on a cross? Who can sufficiently declare the succeeding great goodness of God?
And I think maybe the closest answer we get is the Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Luke. When you think of Luke, big picture, you should be thinking something like this. If I had to look at one verse to summarize all of Luke, what verse would that be?
That verse would be in Luke, Chapter 19, that Jesus came to seek and save those that were lost. If you had to think what might the outline of Luke be, you should think about the first nine chapters. It's talking about the beginning of Jesus' ministry.
The next ten or eleven chapters, it's talking about Jesus as he sets his face toward Jerusalem. And then the last chapters, Jesus is in Jerusalem dealing with lots of opposition, and then ultimately he dies on the cross, is raised from the dead, and then we hear him speak to those on the Emmaus Road.
The other thing you should always say to yourself when you come to the Gospel of Luke, as you know, because I think I repeat it every time I preach, is that Luke is a physician and he's trying to write an orderly account, an historical account, an account that has verifiable witnesses, so that Chapter 1, Verse 4, you have a certain faith.
Not faith in faith, not hopeful, but you know for certain that these are true facts that he has put together, of course, inspired by the Holy Spirit. So Chapter 1 talks about Mary, and it talks about, I almost said Martha, because every time you say Mary, you want to say Martha.
I knew a man once, his first wife was Mary, his second wife was Martha. After Mary died, it was Martha. So then what do you do? That was S. Lewis Johnson, by the way. We come to this passage, and we hear about Mary and Zechariah, and kind of the twin parallel accounts, remember, of John the Baptist infancy, or birth rather, and also of Jesus.
And now we come to Chapter 2, and we really made it through about Verse 13 or so last week, but I want to kind of catch up to where we were. Of course, Chapter 2 starts off with a divine decree. We think it's a human decree, and it was a human decree, that Caesar Augustus thought, you know what, I'd like to have more taxes, and I'd like to have more people register for the military, and so everybody has to go to their hometown.
Now the Jews would think, all right, we're going to go to our hometown, we have to pay the taxes, but we don't have to be in the military. And the Jews knew, you know what, they're going to tax us, because that's just what the Roman occupiers do.
But from our perspective, we see the decree behind the decree, and that is this. The Messiah had to be born in what city? Bethlehem. And now you've got a pregnant, pregnant, pregnant woman named Mary up in Nazareth, and you've got to get her 70 miles south, and goes up in elevation, to be born in Bethlehem, because if the Messiah is born in Nazareth, all of us are doomed.
And so they went to Nazareth, and remember, Mary in verse 7 gave birth to her firstborn son, wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him on the throne. Oh sorry, I misread that. Laid him in a manger, in a food trough, and there was no place for them in the guest room.
Not like a hotel, don't think that, don't think of a seedy motel, you had probably a rectangular place to live, and you lived in the center, your guest room was on one side, and you kept the animals on the other side.
And so they go to this town, there's lots of people coming back for the census, the military people are there to take the census, and there's no room for people in their guest rooms, and their mother-in-law rooms, and their Airbnb rooms, you have to stay where the animals were.
And so Mary is having to birth the king of the universe, in such a place. I mean sometimes my father would say, when I had bad manners around the table, I mean my dad was no elbows on the table, very, very strict, Korean war vet, German, I mean it was like, you do what he says, or it's time to duck.
And dad would always say, son, he was talking to Pat, because I always had good manners, to my brother, son, were you born in a barn? Were you born in a barn? I mean if you're born in a barn, then you just do whatever, you're like just an animal.
And so now I'm thinking to myself, well dad, I was not born in a barn, and I'll try to have better manners. But the king of the universe, is born essentially in a barn. Of course we know, that Jesus, the eternal God, becomes flesh, and this is just the way God does things.
Galatians says, when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who are under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. Jesus, to be our redeemer, has to be like us, and so he has to be truly human, because the justice of God requires, that the same human nature would sin, should pay for sin.
And he must be a righteous man, because if you're not righteous, how can you pay for the sins of someone else? You have to pay for your own sins. Our outline is simple. We're going to pick up, the outline that we had last week.
Questions about this passage, that make you understand it better, and then reflect, what should my response be to divine truth? Last week I said there are several questions, there are seven questions, I can give you those now, and we're going to work our way, all the way through verse 20.
So today we're going to have a little review, in verses 8 and following, and then we're going to catch up, and get through verse 20. The outline is simple. Questions, that will help you understand the passage, and then reflect what this divine truth means, and means to you.
A little bit review, with some new things added in. Question number one. Why was the message given to the shepherds? Remember we looked at that last week, in verse 8. Why the shepherds? I mean, why not the Pharisees?
Why not the king? Why not the Levites? Why not some higher up people? In the same region, there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock, by night. In the third century, a rabbi said, the most despised occupation, in the world, is shepherds.
Second most despised, tax collectors. Thirdly, most despised, gamblers. And here Jesus, birth is proclaimed, to the shepherds. The good shepherd is going to be born, said the angel, to the shepherds. Question two, we ask and answer.
Why were the shepherds frightened? Verse nine. And an angel of the Lord, probably the same angel of the Lord, in chapter one, Gabriel. We don't know his name here, but it's probably Gabriel. He appeared to them.
That's the language of visions, and opening your eyes, and something from heaven has come down. And the Lord appeared to them, and cried out with great joy. The baby is born in Bethlehem. That worked out perfect, didn't it?
When you're a new pastor, that kind of stuff bugs you. But now, it's just like, the more the merrier. Cry away. And the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. Remember, the angel shows up to Zechariah.
He's afraid. He shows up to Mary. She's afraid. But neither of those appearances had the glory of the Lord. The manifest presence of God. The visible presence of God showing up. They were afraid. How much more afraid are the shepherds?
Because it's not just the angel, and you would be afraid of an angel, but it said they were filled with great fear. This bright, radiant, effulgent glory is right there. This is, by the way, the same glory that Jesus is going to return with.
Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him, so it is to be. Amen. Revelation chapter 1. These shepherds need a message, and that message is going to be authenticated and affirmed by God's presence Himself.
The glory cloud. They're going to know it's certainly God. I've thought to myself over the years when I've had surgeries, or I'm reminding other people with surgeries, I could probably remind Michael and even Lisa this week, if you're a Christian, and you have a surgery, you are going to wake up to bright lights one way or the other.
Right? They put that final little bit of fentanyl in me, or whatever they're going to give me, Versed, and they put me out. I'm thinking, I'm waking up to bright lights. And it's almost like a letdown that the bright lights are in the recovery room, and they're coming over and asking me if I want any kind of little shortbreads and stuff, and having a soda.
Of course, if you're not a Christian, and I'm not joking now, there's no glory but darkness. But for us as Christians, one day to see that glory, to see God face to face, question three, what was the message from the angels?
Why was the message given? That's the way God works. Why were the shepherds frightened? Because sinful people respond to God's glory like that. The message from the angels was what? Verses 10 and 11. It's good news is what it is.
And the angels said to them, in essence, I know you had mega fear, but now I'm going to give you mega joy. Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you this day is born in the city of David, who is Christ the Lord.
Darkness covered the planet spiritually, and now the light of the world has come. Remember Jesus said in John 8, 12, I am the light of the world. The way for pardon. The way for peace. The way for no more types and shadows in the Old Testament.
Flickers and glimmers of what the Messiah might be like. But no, now the Messiah is born. And so there's good tidings. I said it last week, but I'll say it a little bit differently this week. You go to stores, and they do have the Christmas stuff already up.
So I want you to just kind of redeem that. Next time you go to a store, and you see Christmas stuff up, I just want you to say to yourself, they must have listened to Pastor Mike's sermon about Christmas.
They probably were listening through the internet, through YouTube. What God has done in Christ Jesus is the gospel of great joy. And why is it great joy? Because our greatest problem, as I prayed earlier, is we're sinners, and we need to be forgiven.
It's not our health. It's not our finances. The greatest issue is, we are sinners, and we need a Savior. And here comes the Savior, finally after all these centuries. The kingdom of God, Romans says, is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
Paul said in a jail, rejoice always in the Lord. And again I say rejoice. And I could say to you, rejoice in the Lord always because of His birth. And again I say rejoice. Side note, I didn't say last week, you know what the text says, for all the people?
That's a definite article, the people. It's talking about Jews. And certainly there's more than Jews, because later on we're going to look in chapter 2, and there's going to be in verse 32, a light for revelation for the Gentiles.
And of course the gospel comes first to the Jews, and then to the Greeks or Gentiles. The contents of the news, no demands, just all promises and all grace. In the city of David, all those promises from the Old Testament, including the highlight of the Davidic Covenant in 2 Samuel chapter 7, promise fulfilled, promise fulfilled, promise fulfilled through the line of David.
This is the sixth time I think Luke mentions David's name. Probably 30 years ago, there was something called the Promise Keepers, and it's a men's group, and we were given seven more laws to try to keep, as if the ten written in the Bible were not enough, and we were supposed to be promise keepers.
And left to ourselves, of course, we're promise breakers. And finally, there's a promise keeper here, promise long ago, Davidic Kingdom, Davidic Covenant. Now one thing I don't want you to miss, because every word in the Bible is important.
For unto you is born this day. If you're an underliner, you should underline this day. You think, that's not a big deal. This day? Did you know when you see those words, this day, or particularly today in the Gospel of Luke, He is saying, the Messiah has come.
You should be thinking to yourself, fulfillment of the divine plan of God. You should be thinking, it's the dawning of a new era. The Messianic era. Jesus said in Luke 4, today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.
Luke 5, they said after Jesus did things, we have seen extraordinary things today. How about this? Jesus came to the place, He looked up and said to Zacchaeus in the tree, Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.
Jesus said to him, today salvation has come to this house, since He is also a son of Abraham. And you hear that language even in 2 Corinthians 6. And if you're not a Christian, I say to you, today is the day of salvation.
The Messianic hopes and truths have arrived, and you need to believe. And then Jesus is described as, Savior Christ and Lord. He's the Old Testament Savior. He's Christ the Anointed One. He's my Savior, your Savior.
He's my Messiah, your Messiah. And He is also Lord. And when you think of Lord, you say to yourself, King, Sovereign, Controller of the Universe. That's true, true, and true of Jesus. But that's not the focus here.
The focus is in chapter 1, Lord has been used 16 times of God, and now there's a baby born in a manger, and that baby is God. He's Yahweh. Yahweh. That's what the whole focus here. God Himself appearing in the flesh to call this baby Lord is to call Him Yahweh, the second person of the Trinity.
Well, there are some people that deny the Incarnation. I don't know if you know that or not. Of course, we don't deny the Incarnation around here. I'm always fascinated by 1 John. Did you know that 1 John tells you something to not believe?
The Bible says don't believe something. Here's what it says. Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God. For many false prophets have gone out into the world.
By this you know the Spirit of Christ. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. It's hard to believe. It's hard to put your mind around. Paul says in 1 Timothy, it's the mystery of godliness that Jesus was manifest in the flesh.
He existed before He was born. And the Word becomes flesh. That is a hard concept to get your mind around. But what we dare not do is to say we deny it, we suppress it, we don't want to believe that. He's manifest in the flesh.
And He has to be truly man to save us. By the way, the angels proclaim Jesus. And if you're a Sunday school teacher, a mom, a dad, a preacher, or an evangelist, or anything like that, including whatever time you open the Bible, the angels have enough sense to proclaim the Lord Jesus.
I think that's a pretty good model for us. They understand the proclamation of the good news of the Lord Jesus. If you want to know what the center of all the Bible is, it's the Lord Jesus. It's not a bunch of how-tos, although law is important, but it's about the Lord Jesus.
Sinclair Ferguson said, we need to return to true preaching to the heart rooted in the principle of grace focused on the Lord Jesus Christ. Then people will say about our ministry, not merely, He was an expository preacher.
He was practical. Instead, they will say, He preached Christ to me. And that's what we're after, whether evangelist or not, whether we're Bible teachers or not, whether you're a mom or dad or something else, we preach Christ Jesus.
As the creeds say, for us and for our salvation, He came down from heaven and became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and was made human. Question 4. This will be a fast one. I just put it here to make what was implicit explicit.
Is there any law in the good news? The answer is no. Law is good, but you don't have to do anything in order to be saved. You have to believe and you have to trust. God saves sinners. God saves the ungodly.
And the advice is not, clean up your life. The advice is not, do religious things. The advice is not, get rid of your sheep so you can keep the Sabbath on Saturday. The advice isn't advice at all because advice is law.
It's a proclamation. Number 5. And this is a little bit more newer information. Down in verse 12. Do you see how gracious the Lord is? That's my question. Question 5. Do you see how gracious the Lord is?
Okay, let's say you're the shepherds, you're out, it's dark, you're told by the angel, Jesus is born, and he's in Bethlehem. Go. There's a lot of people there. So if you had to go find a baby someplace in West Boylston, there's the baby, he's a Messiah, you go find him.
What would you do? Well, I don't know. You drive down to the brown rice and start looking around? I don't know. Just like house by house by house? And here, the graciousness of God, he gives them, through the angel, a sign.
This will be a sign for you. Here's what you'll look for. I'm going to help you out. You'll find a baby. Well, there's probably lots of babies. Wrapped in swaddling clothes. You wrap them all in swaddling clothes.
And lying in a manger. How do we know where the right child is going to be? How do we know when we find a baby and do we look for a pretty baby? They're certainly looking for a boy baby. They know the Messiah is going to be a boy.
And I thought, isn't that kind of the Lord to give the sign? And it's so helpful because it would otherwise kind of sound so absurd unless it was from the glory cloud where the angels are in a manger.
I also find it fascinating. They're not told, well, you know what, by the way, when you get there, make sure you sit down and have a good talk with Mary. Make sure you find the godliest lady in town. Her name's Mary.
You can sit and talk with her and learn. No, no. It's all about the Lord Jesus. You go find Lord Savior Christ. He'll be in a manger. Philippians 2. Jesus emptied himself by taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form.
By the way, He was found in human form by the shepherds, but that means more than that. He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death. Even death on a cross. This is called incarnation.
You try to find the baby and He's going to be the God-man. He's going to be in the manger. The incarnation. Do you know what incarnation even means? If you break up the words? Enfleshment. Carne. Flesh.
At the risk of crossing the line a little bit, I'll quote Chuck Swindoll. That part's not crossing the line. What he says couldn't possibly cross the line, but now you can blame him instead of me. By the way, when I go to hear camp speakers out in the Redwoods or something, by far, probably the most enjoyable camp speaker is Chuck Swindoll because he talks about the Lord.
He does convict you, but he does it in a funny way. Swindoll. Since I'm a chili lover, I sometimes describe the incarnation by saying Jesus was God con carne. Enfleshment. Carne. Meat. How can this be?
I mean, we have to just settle down a little bit and go, okay, the God-man. Eternal. Glorious. Son. Manger. Barn. Animals. Humiliation. Humiliation? Humbling? I mean, if I was running the universe, I'd say, okay, shepherds, here's what you do.
You go find a five-star... What's the best hotel you ever stayed at? Ritz-Carlton. You go find the Ritz-Carlton. And you go find a baby wrapped in gold and purple. He's laying in some kind of marble thing.
No, no, it's none of that. Question six. Better brace yourself. Should God be praised for sovereign election? Should God be praised for sovereign election? I think this is the second time human ears have heard angels.
I could be wrong. I know in Isaiah 6, human ears of Isaiah heard. Here's another one at least. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of heavenly hosts praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those whom he is pleased.
I don't know how to describe this. There's one angel and a glory cloud and there's mega fear. Don't be afraid now. Now it's like the curtain goes up. Do you know angels exist? Do you know angels are invisible?
Do you know there's angels probably in this room? We can't see the third dimension, kind of the spiritual world. And so the angels were always there. And now to confirm and to be witnesses and to do some other things we'll talk about in a minute.
The curtain goes up and now the invisible becomes visible. And I'm pretty much thankful that the shepherds were thinking, you know what? We're glad the host of heaven doesn't show up first. It's one that shows up first.
And a host of heaven, you can't count a host. Host is a military term of a big unit, of a big brigade, of a bunch of people. Army language. And the armies of the Lord now are seen. And now they're praising God and saying, what must that have been like?
Suddenly, it says. That's used when something happens that's amazing that God did. And Saul is on his way to Damascus to persecute the church. Suddenly, the glory of the Lord Jesus shows up. That's the same kind of language.
The army are a band of angels. And what do they say? If you get bogged down in, well, you know what? When I read this passage, don't ever say that angels sing. The angels only say. Well, I could talk to you a little bit about that, but that's not the point.
Please, if your whole thing is stuck on, well, angels never sing. They only say. You've missed it. It's what the angels say. It's the lyrics that matter. Now, of everybody in the universe, who are the first people, the first things to praise?
It was these angels. And what do they say? Let's break it down. Glory to God in the highest. Now, can you imagine that? How does God get glory? Well, we don't give Him glory and make Him more glorious.
We recognize His glory and for who He is. I wonder if God received glory when He created the world. Answer? Did He? Of course, God creates the world and He gets glory. You can even go outside and in a fallen world, you can stand at Niagara Falls or the Grand Canyon or to see a sunrise or a sunset and you just go, wow!
To God be the glory. You make creation. And you get glory. And you think, where would be, out of all the things that God has done? Making Adam. Giving promises. What's the highest glory that's ever been given to God?
It is for the incarnation and the birth of the God-Man. Do you see it? Glory to God in the highest. Redemption of people gets the most glory. And of course, then we're redeemed. We then give God glory as well.
Out of anything that can give God glory, this gives Him the most glory. I think of 1 Corinthians 10, verse 31, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the what? That's good that you do it, but that has nothing to compare with this.
This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. He receives all the glory. He receives all the focus. The angels are all focused on them. Not Mary, not Joseph, not anyone else. It is the Son of God.
Glory, glory, glory. That's kind of from the divine perspective. And now we move to the human perspective. Do you see it? Romans 5, verse 14, and on earth, peace. Let's just stop there. Hey, I thought Caesar Augustus gave peace.
He's the one that gave Roman peace. Pax Romana. He's the Prince of Peace on earth, this Caesar Augustus. Of course he's not. And he can't give peace with God. Right? Romans 5, verse 1, we're justified and we have peace with God.
No longer enemies, but friend. And no king on the universe, no Caesar, no leader can give us internal peace that's a fruit of having objective peace with God. In Christ Jesus, Ephesians 2 says, you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
For He Himself is our peace who has made us both one and broken down in His flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances. It reminds me of Jesus when He said to the woman, your faith has saved you, go in peace.
He raises the girl from the dead and He says to her daughter, your faith has made you well, go in peace. Now, here's the rub. Who gets the peace? The text says, with whom He is pleased. Your text might say, goodwill among men.
Of course, growing up in America with Christmas language, it's goodwill among men. You have three options when you look at this passage. Option one, an old, vulgate translation, a Catholic translation.
It says, to men of goodwill. They're the ones that get the peace. We know that's a total lie because there's no men of goodwill because all men are sinners. If you're good, you get peace. There's another option and that's King James' option that King James and probably new King James has.
And it says, goodwill among men. So, Jesus is born, the Prince of Peace is born, you have an opportunity to receive grace and peace, just please accept it. Option three, here's the oldest translation and the best translation, among those with whom He is pleased.
Men and women of His good pleasure. Now, let's work through this a little bit and think through it. True or false? You don't have to say it out loud, just in your mind. When it comes to people, when we think about salvation, true or false?
You earn your salvation. False. You have to buy your salvation. False. You have to inherit your salvation. False. You get saved by doing good works. False. You get saved by doing good deeds. False. You get saved by being good.
False. You get saved by being better than someone else. False. Do you know salvation? Salvation, peace, belongs to those that God decides to give it to. If you can't earn it, and you still get it, by the way, salvation is all of grace, and it's a gift.
It's a gift of God. It's not a reward. It's not good works. Did you know Jesus said in this Gospel, the Gospel of Luke, in chapter 12, Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
Not everybody the kingdom, but to you. God is sovereign, and He does what He wants. Keep your finger here, and I want you to turn over to Matthew, chapter 11 please, as we're just working through this.
Who gets the favor of God? Do you earn the favor of God? Is God's favor to everyone, and you just simply have to accept it? Or is God sovereign into whom He gives favor? God is not pleased with us being good, or doing good.
God is sovereign. The Father has a right to choose the bride for the Son. And so what we have to do, is we have to go through passages like this, because I'm telling you what, sovereign election is a pride crusher.
People deny election for several reasons. They're ignorant to what the Scriptures teach. They're prideful, or they don't understand how bad Adam's fall was, and depravity. Because if it's completely a fall, and he can't do anything to help himself, he's going to need to be rescued by God's sovereign pleasure.
Now when we go to Matthew chapter 11, most of the time, we love this last part in verse 28, and rightfully so. I mean, what warms my heart more than maybe almost any other Bible verse, is this verse. Come to Me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest.
Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart. Where else in the 89 chapters of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John does it talk about Jesus' heart? Right here. Gentle and lowly.
These are the most wonderful verses, are they not? My heart needs settling down and I just need rest. Before I was saved, I'm working around to try to earn my salvation. I just need to rest in the work of Christ.
But there are some verses that precede this. Verse 25. At that time, Jesus declared, Matthew 11, 25, I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children.
Yes, Father, for such was Your gracious will. All things have been handed over to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.
I'm going to say that again. And no one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him. That's sovereignty. And then the responsibility is to follow, of course, come to Me all who labor and are heavy laden.
Back to Luke 2, please. Mike, what's your point? My point's this. Dear friend, I don't want you to gnash your teeth about God's sovereignty. I don't want you to be bugged that God chooses. I don't want you to have election pop in your mind and think, I don't like that, and I'm kicking against the goads.
I don't want you to hear the word predestination and say, how could a loving God do that? You know what I want you to do when you hear election, predestination, sovereign grace? You know what I want you to do?
I want you to act like the angels and say, glory to God in the highest. I'm praising God for this. Election is to be praised because if God didn't elect, no one's going to heaven. Did you know election should be praised?
God didn't have to save anyone. And God is a saving God, a sovereign God. He chooses Israel, none of the other nations. He chooses the twelve apostles, none of the others. He chooses Levites to do certain things and not the others.
He chooses some angels and not others. God just chooses. And by the way, don't you like to choose? Who's your favorite football team? I don't know, maybe after the one o 'clock game they might not be.
Did someone make you have that team, your favorite? Now some have arranged marriages here, some have loved marriages. Most of us picked our spouse. And if not, they were still choosing involved with parents and loved ones who helped us pick for the arranged marriage.
What we love in ourselves to pick... Somebody asked me yesterday, what's your favorite color? I said, yellow. What's my favorite football team? Who's my favorite person? This, that, and the other. I choose, I like that.
And what I like in me, I don't like in God. We've been made like God's image. We're image bearers of God. God's a choosing God. He's more than that, but He's a choosing God. And guess what? That's why you like to choose.
Did you know in Ephesians chapter 1, Paul talks about election? And it's the same response as the angels. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him.
In love, He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, not ours. And what's the response? Don't miss it. To the praise of His glorious grace.
To the praise of His glorious grace. If you're a Christian, you ought to sit down sometime regularly and say, I can't believe you chose me. Like the old lady said who was talking to a famous pastor. I'm glad He chose me because I never would have chosen Him.
The only reason you're a Christian is because you're a highly favored one and you should praise God for that. No one can come to me, Jesus said, unless the Father who sent me, what? Draws him. Forget the singing or saying.
I want you to realize this is praise for sovereign election. This is your only hope for evangelism. It's the only hope for you to get saved. It's election. And God did not make a mistake by putting election in the Bible.
Well, you know, we don't really talk about election in church because, well, you know, it's not really democratic. God's a king. He's not a president. Well, we don't really talk about election because it's not practical.
It's not practical. Can you believe God chose you? I probably said it 50 times in my life and from this pulpit. Why was I only engaged to Kim for 30 days? Because I paid a big dowry for that. Looking back, I didn't want her to know all about me because there's a lot of things that would make someone say, I don't.
Honey, will you marry me? No, I won't. So you quick get married. That's what you do. You pick a girl who keeps her word and you quick get married. 34 years later, God knew every sin you'd ever commit.
God knew every sin you'd ever commit and will commit. And he said, I love you. I love you. You can think about the first time somebody ever said, I love you. Maybe it's your mom. Maybe it's your dad. And then another person.
I mean, I always taught my son, Luke, I don't know if he kept my advice or not, but the advice was never say I love you to a girl until you say the next sentence. Will you marry me? I love you. There's a lot in here to hate.
I mean, I might dress up okay, but the God of the universe loves me. And he had his eternal son in the sweet fellowship of the triune God in eternity. And they decide to show their glory. I'm going to go rescue people.
He didn't have to rescue anyone. He could have rescued everyone. But he decided to rescue some. And your response ought to be, if you're a Christian, praise God from whom all blessings flow. It should not be I'm mad at it and I don't like it.
And what if my loved one is an elect? No, no, and no. If you think that way, may I just kindly say to you, you ought to repent. You ought to just give in. And when you give in to God's election, you give up your pride.
It is a pride killer. But it's the truth. Last question. Question seven. What is the proper response to the Word? What are the proper responses to the Word, I might say? Well, there's a bunch in here.
And I'm going to read verses 15 through 20. We won't spend much time here. It's self-explanatory. But I want you to see some responses to this good news. When the angels went away, verse 15, from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.
And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and a baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning the child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them.
But Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all that had been heard and seen as had been told them. Oh, it's got so many responses.
This is the Christian life. This is the way life is meant to be. God shows Himself in revelation through the Word or in person on the top of the mountain back in the Old Testament. And there's a response.
Revelation response. That's why we read Scripture then sing. That's why we read Scripture and sing. That's why we preach from Scripture and then sing. It's the revelation response rhythm. What's the response here?
The first thing is faith. Don't miss it. It doesn't say faith here, but they believe. The first response to God is always faith. I take you at your word. I believe. And that's why they quick went away to Bethlehem.
The angels, verse 15, went up into heaven. Probably like Jesus went up into heaven. We'll go up into heaven later in Acts 1. And now, they believe what the angels have said and they say, let us go over to Bethlehem.
We have to check this out. When you hear about the good news of the Lord Jesus, the first thing you should do is to believe. And if you're a Christian, you keep believing. Not only that, here's the right response that comes out of faith.
If all of faith is fruit and evidence, you obey. You're a doer of the Word, not merely hearers only. And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in the manger. I don't know about this, but you've got to work through this.
They have sheep. Who's going to watch the sheep? They went with haste. Did they have time to say, let's find somebody else in the middle of the night to watch the sheep? My inkling is more like this. When the Jews were told to go up for the festivals to Israel, they had to entrust their property and their animals and their care to the sovereign God who would take care of them.
And if God says, go to Bethlehem and find this baby, and I've got sheep, I leave the sheep and I go. When Jesus says, Simon, you follow Me, He drops the nets and He follows. Well, either way, if they found somebody or not, they go.
They obey. And they found that baby. They found the baby. And there's a response to that. Not only belief, not only obedience, but wonder. And when they saw it, they may have known what had been seen.
I'm so excited about it, I can't talk. They may have known the saying that had been told them concerning this child, and all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. Hey, wait a second. You can't even give me testimony in court, shepherds.
But you can hear. Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see. Hail the incarnate deity. They're wondering. They're marveling. It's a surprise. It's unbelievable. And not only that, there's another response. You can think, when you hear the word preached, you say, I believe it.
I want to obey it. The wonder of it all. And also, now what does Mary do? I mean, she's known about this for nine months. They're just hearing about it. But Mary, here's a good response to the word, treasured all these things.
Pondering them in her heart. What do you do with treasure? Besides your children and all that, do you have something that's just like the most valuable to you? What do you do with it? Well, I just leave it on the side of the road.
Of course I don't. I put it in my lockbox. I put it in my gun safe. I put it in something protective. I put it in a file cabinet that's protective of fire. From fire. She's storing it up in her heart.
She's thinking. She's had nine months to think through this. And the shepherds, they hear and they go. Mary hears and she thinks. She's rolling it over in her mind. That's literally what pondering means.
May I suggest to you that this is the kind of response to God's word that all of us need to have, yet we all struggle with something like this. I'm not a legalist, but this is a thief most of the time.
And I stand convicted with you. We need time. We need to think. Christianity is a thinking religion. Mary thinking, pondering, rolling over, thinking, meditating. That's Psalm 1 -1, by the way, and following.
When the psalmist says, I basically am just, I'm repeating the words over and over because I'm ruminating, I'm meditating. And over and over and over, I'm pondering and thinking, thinking, thinking. That's why if you're on your way home in the car and you've got children, if the dad's around, the dad should be saying, let's grade Pastor Abendroth today.
No, they should say, it's kind of, you know, you go home and you have roast pastor every Sunday. I know how that works. I have roast pastor more than you do. Children, what did we learn today about Jesus?
What did we learn about our own sin? What did we learn from the passage today? Helping your children. Mull it over. You get around the dinner table. Tell me one thing at lunch that you learned from the sermon today.
Trying to get them plugged in. That assumes that they're here and listening because they should be. This is a good response. Treasuring them. Storing them. Protecting them. What does the psalmist say?
What you do with God's Word. You hide it in your heart so that you might not sin against God. And we see that happening right here. Treasured means over and over and over. Imperfect tense. Just thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking.
And then last response, and we finish here, is praise. These are all good responses to what God has done. Faith has to start, but all these others are evidences. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all that they had seen as it had been told them.
The real worshippers were not the Pharisees. The real worshippers were not the scribes. Not the Sadducees. It was the shepherds. What they had heard and seen. The Messiah has come. John Calvin said, if the cradle of Christ has such an effect upon them as to make them rise from the stable and the manger to heaven, how much more powerful ought the death and resurrection of Christ be to us.
Are you a complainer? Or a praiser? Our kids used to listen to some songs, some Christian songs, and I remember the one was... Kim might have to help me. I'm trying to remember. I'm a little praiser. I'm a...
How does it go again? I'm a little praiser. I'm a holy ghost raiser or something like that. I mean, it's Pentecostal, but I love Pentecostals. I'm trying to make my grandson a Pentecostal because when we would always say to our kids, praise the Lord, when they were one, they had to put their hands up.
And so I'm trying to teach Amos to be one as well. We'll see how that works. The Christian life is we stop doing one thing and then we do the other because who we are in Christ and united with Christ and we're able to do it.
And so, if we put off bitterness and we want to be forgiving people, if we stop telling lies and we tell the truth, if we stop stealing and work, wouldn't it make sense? Think, well, I just complain all the time about everything.
I'm going to start praising God. I'm going to start praising God. When I meet people at church, after church, before church, I'm just going to say, by the way, before we get into this other stuff, I just have to tell you how God has been so good to me this week.
I have eight hours of surgery tomorrow but God has been so good to me. He's always been faithful. I have to open up my sternum on Friday, but God has always been faithful. That's the response to God's Word.
Another response to God's Word is singing. So take your hymnals and we are going to sing a Christmas song, but it's not a Christmas song necessarily. It's a song about the Incarnation. Tim, come and lead us.
Inside your bulletin is the extended version of this song, Angels from the Realm of Glory. And I want us to sing a lot of these verses because there's one that sounds like this. Sinners rung with true repentance, doomed for guilt to endless pains.
Justice now revokes the sentence, mercy calls you, break your chains. And so, stand please, we're going to sing the extended version of Angels from the Realms of Glory to help us be reminded about what we've just learned in the passage and our response.